Zombie terror

[Charissa]

So... I'm reading "World War Z" and I can't sleep at night when I'm done reading. The last time a book creeped me out this bad was reading "The Excorcist". This is the second night in a row I am awake and worried that Zombies will come crashing in through my back door, covered in sea weed. It has reminded me of how, growing up, I spent my entire childhood terrified of Zombies. The reason for this was that at the age of six I watched "Night of the Living Dead" with the older kids in the commune where we lived... but only HALF of it... so for the rest of my childhood there were Zombies roaming the woods, just waiting for night to come out and eat my brains.

I'm all grown up now, okay? And I've spent nights alone in the wilderness with only a tarp, a swiss army knife, and a hiking boot to defend myself from bears, lightning, and wolverines (okay, so there are no wolverines left in the Sierra's, but you get the point). Why on earth do Zombies still scare the living daylights out of me??

Does anyone else in this community share this deeply primal, irrational fear of Zombies?

[Jesse]

Hi, first time poster long time reader. You know I find World War Z far more disturbing than most other zombie narratives I've been exposed to. I personally think it has to do with the level of realism(ok aside from the dead rising) in the story. Its not written like its fiction, its written like non-fiction. Add to that the level of detail and intelligence that went into writing it, and it just hits too close to home to not kick in some fight or flight responses in me.

Now this being said, you know what scares me more. 28 Days Later, and 28 Weeks Later zombies. A friend of mine Noah will argue that they are far easier to kill, so he finds them less creepy. He has a point, but then again I've got a few. They are just so damn fierce. They want to hurt you, they are pissed at you. I think its the energeticness (if that is even a word) of their attempts to kill the uninfected (though I still think that logically they should just attack any and everything, and sort themselves out for us, but it doesn't seem to work like that in the flick). They are VERY fast. It was the opening scene in 28 Weeks Later that really did me in. They are inside that house and up the stairs quick as a bunny. Slow moving shamblers I can deal with, I'm fat and out of shape but I damn sure can out manuever rotting flesh. Now adrenaline ampped up living flesh, thats a whole different story. I don't think I'd be able to survive long. Then my final point of fearing these G's more than old fashioned types, is the speed of infection. One drop of blood in your freakin eye, and in like 10 seconds you are a bloodthirsty berserker. At least with a classic style zombie I'll have time to take myself out or something, and not become something like them. Not much chance of that in the 28 movies. So to answeer your question, yes zombies freak me out too. Its kind of a love hate thing. I like the triumph of man over disaster that/planning and readiness of zombie threat(its just fun to imagine strategy for holding out in the retail outlet I work in), but then I'm also very disturbed by that tide of horror too.

[Charissa]

Fast zombies are totally way scarier than slow ones. 28 Days Later scared the bloody hell out of me. I thought it was a great film though. And yeah, WWZ was written very realistically. It was one of the best things about it. So much detail. Very impressive.

[Brian]

I just finished World War Z also. I think one thing that makes it creepy is that fact the reactions of the different people and countries seems very plausible. It seems like most zombie books follow a main character or group of characters, but WWZ shows more of the big picture. Also, when he talked about specific places, it was very accurate. For example, the story about the air force pilot who parachuted into the Achafalaya Basin in Louisiana. I live about an hour away from there, and I've driven through it a hundred times. His description of that area is dead on.

And I think something that was even scarier than the fast zombies from 28 days later was the intelligent zombies from Brian Keene's The Rising and City of the Dead. They weren't as fast as the zombies from 28 days later, but they could think, drive, use weapons, plan ambushes, etc. Also, the fact that you didn't have to be bitten or infected to become a zombie (anyone who died of any cause became a zombie) made survival much more difficult.

[Cookie]

Charissa, you are definitely not the only one. When I was a kid, my dad took us almost every Sunday to rent a movie, and he would ALWAYS pick something scary. I watched Day of the Dead and I was never the same. The scene where he sacrifices himself to the zombies.. ugh.... I can't STAND it. I've tried to watch it again as an adult, and I made it through about 10 minutes before my cat jumped onto the a/c outside my window and almost gave me a heart attack.

Ever since I saw that movie, I've been terrified of two things. One, the realization that you are about to die a horrible death. Two, zombies. There are nights where I pull up into my driveway and look in the rearview mirror before I get out, COMPLETELY EXPECTING to see zombies shambling down my driveway behind me. I've walked around the outside of my house before judging which windows or doors would be most breachable in a zombie attack. Because YOU NEVER KNOW.

Being afraid of zombies is completely rational.

[Charissa]

Cookie: OMG I know your terror!!! Sometimes I think to myself... is this salmon bat hanging on my wall enough to protect me in the event a zombie should crash though the very thin front window pane leading to the front porch? At other times I have been known to say, while wandering through graveyards at dusk... who has the keys? I always hope the answer is ME! (ie not Johnny). Also, I am fairly certain that all woods, in the dark, are filled with zombies. Luckily, when you are outside, you can always run.

[Matthew]

I have to say that the standard zombie is more of a concern than a fright, in my case. "Standard" being slow moving and instinctual but otherwise unthinking. I get the horrors when it comes to undead things that can actually talk to me, especially about topics like how they used to know me, "Grandma, please shut up now, you're dead."

Not to say that I wouldn't be frightened of a horde of dead things coming to eat me, but I suspect I would be frightened by a horde of anything coming to eat me...except for bunnies. That would be a cute death.

[Cookie]

Bunnies are scary. They have beady little eyes, and twitchy little noses. What do they need such good eyesite for, anyway? .... But I do agree with you about Grandma talking to me after I'm dead. Unless it's in a nice dream where she gives me receipes.

I'm not what you would call "a runner" or "a fast mover at all in general". It's all about moseying where I'm from. But I'm telling you what, if I saw a zombie, I'd turn into FloJo in a heartbeat.

I also have this fear that when I'm driving by large pastures at night, that unbeknownst to me, there is this werewolf hoofing it to my car, and any minute he's going to jump on the roof and peel it back like a can of vienna sausages.

[Dr. Evil]

One zombie question I ask everyone is what kind of zombie would you rather fight.The fast zombies from Dawn of the Dead or the slow ones that know how to use weapons like in Land of the Dead.Also, I would never be cremated so I wouldn't be able to come back as an undead(if that ever happened).

[[deleted user]]

The only BENEFIT to the fast, scary zombies from _28 Days Later_ is they starve to death faster than the eternally nondecomposing shamblers.

[Matthew]

Slow moving hordes are preferable to fast moving hordes...is there a group term for zombies? I'm not that into horde as a term. A gaggle of zombies, a school of zombies, a gross of zombies?

Oh, nice reference Cookie.

[[deleted user]]

A pimp of zombies.

Because zombies are BIG PIMPIN'.

[Charissa]

Bunnies are evil incarnate. Did you know that their urine can eat through metal? Did you know that the Germans used rabbit urine as a biological warfare agent?

Or maybe midgets.

Fast Zombies are the SCARIEST THING EVER!!! 28 Days Later made me curl up in a fetal position and rock back and forth like an autistic person. But could I stop watching it? NO! I had to see how it ended so there wouldn't be fast zombies chasing me for the rest of my natural (or unnatural) life. Of course, it didn't help that then I went to go see 28 Weeks Later where they come back and it ends with them invading Paris through the Tube. Dude... I'm still certain Paris is crawling with Zombies.

Cookie: 100 points for "vienna sausages"

Brendan: 1000 points for "a pimp of zombies"

My daughter insists it's obviously a horde of zombies, duh, mom. But I agree with Natalie: plague of zombies seems most appropo.

I don't mind dead things that talk to me. As long as they aren't telling me to kill little children.

[Brandon]

Love the "Once more with Feeling..." reference Cookie.

[Christen]

And Bunnicula....never EVER forget Bunnicula.

[Christen]

I certainly understand zombie terror - it seems so rational that some weird plague would turn humanity against itself.

I get creeped out by the grotesqueness in some films. Especially the scene in Night of the Living Dead where the zombies are eating the two teenagers and they're just like digging in and loving every second. Ugh. Turns my stomach. And Shaun of the Dead where they pull that guy's entrails out. Super yuck.

[Cookie]

Buffy nerds, unite! Or Joss Whedon nerds in general, really!

I think a plague of zombies sounds good, but I'm gonna have to go with my roots, and just say "There's a whole mess of 'em."

I am also way more afraid of fast-movers. Because they're so fast! And I am not! The slow-movers, though, those are like eventual death, just looming. They still get the creep factor. I have this whole theory about the new generation and how everything has to be NOW NOW NOW, even the horrific death at the hand of zombies you're about to experience.

[Allen]

Plague of zombies sounds cool. I believe many terms work/would be used, depending on the size of group and type of zombie. Pack, mob, horde, and swarm are the best. Apparently shooting match is slang(the south maybe?) for a group, and I could definitely see target practice being used, at least when defending a secure location.